TLDR: BG3's XP distribution does not adequately account for completionist play patterns and punishes players for enjoying the game
Late to the party, but doing 1st playthrough and I love the game!! There was a learning curve since I was unfamiliar with D&D rules but it was rewarding and quickly became one of my all time favorites due to a variety of reasons. However, after a brilliantly paced Act 1 & 2, I was devastated to learn of the level 12 cap in Act 3.
Generally I try to explore everywhere, and I capped out in Act 3 with 4 main quests, 11 sidequests (and more if you count the character quests) remaining. Over 15+ quests of content that I feel cheated out of enjoying. There is no XP scaling or diminishing returns to compensate for this. With respect, why would you make content that there's no incentive to completing?
Now that I've capped with so much of the game remaining, I feel betrayed & punished for enjoying and playing the game. Stories & fights I had once bought into are now cumbersome and dragging. I just want to finish the game but also don't want to completely spike my game and throw away my character's (Gorpmilk) playthrough and choices.
My understanding is that the design of the level 12 cap is to avoid especially powerful D&D spells from ruining the balance scaling. So you can 1. not include those spells in the game (already done), 2. have scaling enemies or 3. diminishing return leveling after lvl 12. So people can still finish the game with a level 12 character, via multiple playthroughs or someone has a really robust and long lasting campaign.
There is a Mod that has level 20 cap that allows multiclassing with a single level class cap at 12. I feel like this addresses most of the issue but unfortunately since I don't want to download from an unofficial external source (and I have a Mac) I may just stop playing entirely.
I feel like a fool for reading books, learning the details of the world, doing the small things, getting small XP here and there, appreciating the small details of the game that people put so much effort into making. Capping the game so early is an insult to everyone who has worked on it and who's played it to completion. This is a real bummer and a major turn off to new players. Please advise and fix
